12 Comments

Love your photo 🔥 and that's wonderful that you were able to bounce back into loving your poems. I think that's the point of art, to love what you've created. Even though it's hard to turn off that universal quest for external validation, everyone has different tastes, so as long as you love it, that's what matters and that is the best thing to inspire others, so keep it up!

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Thanks Lizzo you are always so full of wisdom <3 I hope those middle schoolers understand what a gem you are. Really looking forward to our traditional December hangout in Ohio.

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Regardless of the outcome of the poetry contest, you should be so proud of yourself! You win some, you lose some, but you're still such an inspiration, Noor! And you don't look a day older than when I last saw you nearly 13 years ago!

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Thank you Oghie that is so kind!

I’ve been thinking a lot about our Lebanon crew in the last few days. It’s been rough. I hope everyone is ok.

How are you doing these days? Are you still in Eastern Europe?

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It's quite scattered, that's for sure. Fun in the short-term, but a bit tragic in the long-term.

Things aren't really OK at all, but c'est la vie. It's Lebanon...

I'm doing well! Yeah, still in Belgrade :-)

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I love your idea of editing your book by printing it out with larger margins. Sounds fun with all the post its, colored pens, and highlighters, too. Will print out mine like that when I’m ready to edit!

Thanks for sharing your 3-1-1, and I love your impactful photo as you are naturally beautiful, especially in that light.

Your vulnerability is so welcoming and I’m inspired by your shares. I’m cheering you on, Noor!

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Thank you Kat, that is so kind! And I'm excited for your e-book! Really cool to see you and Janet work on long-form writing, I feel like y'all will be able commiserate with my angst over book-writing tribulations even more now :D

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Hahaha. Oh, for sure. This is my 4th book, so I've gone through this a few times, but surprisingly each experience has been quite different―one with a publisher, one was a self published guided journal, one was a part of a compilation, and this one is done with a group as a part of an ebook writing challenge!

Happy to connect to share "war" stories and tips on what worked well, Noor.

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WOW, I can't believe I didn't already know this about you Kat. FOUR books. You are prolific my friend. Looking forward to our IRL hang where we can swap those war stories!

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Noor - I absolutley agree, having the hard copy in hand does make a difference for me too. I always print proposals when I work on them for clients. Back in the day when I worked in publishing we printed all the mss to read - there were no Kindles. I know that was a lot of paper, but I could read 3 books in a day... reading on my kindle really slows me down.

I'm sorry about the poetry contest, that is disappointing. You get major points for doing it thougn.

As for the pic, you look absolutley beautiful. You weren't even trying to be, that's when you know it's true beauty.

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Thank you so much for your kind comments Renee, they really made my day.

I can totally see how reading on a kindle would slow you down. Holding a physical book in my hands just hits different when it comes to absorbing information. Do you print the manuscripts yourself these days? Or is digital reading an unfortunate requirement in your work now?

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I would kill too many trees to print it out. These days I read and mark up mss on my Kindle Scribe. Then I do track changes on the computer. It’s double duty, but I can’t stand reading on the computer and editing at the same time.

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